Slashdot Mirror
Online Game Event Sparks Player Riot
Grimwell Online is carrying a story entitled When does an Online Game go too far?. It details a post to a news group about a world event in the newly released A Tale in the Desert 2. The online game, which simulates an ancient Egyptian culture, was full of angry players after a developer-run event used openly discriminatory language against the female gender. Details on the event can be found at the ATITD2 Wiki, and commentary can be found on TerraNova.
When a game goes to far I don't play it anymore.
This is just more of that post-modern victim shit. Some chicks got bent outta shape because a CHARACTER in a GAME set in ANCIENT EGYPT didn't treat their characters like empowered 21st century soccer-moms.
The irony is that all the women playing the game were actually guys pretending to be women.
Seriously, though, this guy could end up with a lawsuit on his hands. I think he would be wise to issue a public apology pretty soon.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Right, because it would have been so much more realistic for them to portray ancient egypt as "gender-neutral", right?
Maybe they were just going for authenticity?
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
What do you call a basement full of women?
A whine cellar.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
Microsoft RUL3ZZ!!
Linux SUXX0RRZ
RIAA is TEH K1N6!
j/k
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
IT'S A GAME!!
What was the average age of the participants? I suspect that this nonsense was bred entirely from immaturity.
I mean really, who besides a child (mentally) gets so spun up over a game?? I thought they were supposed to be fun!
Have I missed something?
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
As for the "societal implications of this behavior" This territory has been covered before, years ago. The analysis done, the poor quality undergrad papers written (by me), its done.
As an in-game device to create tension and conflict; awesome. Job well done.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Haven't you figured out that the only way we can progress as a society is to forget the past. That is, unless it's something that might benefit our minority agenda.
I'm pretty sure the developer thought that this would be funny... people seem to get offensive and funny mixed up these days.
You should know better when designing something from a broad base that if you offend people, those are potential customers you won't get. Turn away too many potential customers and yhou won't have enough actual customers to make anything work.
Scott Lockwood and K5 admins censor ad discussions that are critical of the ads.
When Scott Lockwood posted an advertisement for his "web hosting company", he clicked the checkbox to enable comments on the advertisement. However, after receiving several comments harshly critical of his service, the discussion on the advertisement mysteriously vanished, as if commenting on the advertisement had never been turned on. How coincidental -- is the Kuro5hin administration in the habit of censoring advertisement discussions if the advertisement draws critical or negative comments? Isn't the purpose of ad comments to allow critical discussion and debate about the merits of the thing being advertised, regardless of whether the opinions are positive or negative? Is any advertisement which receives critical comments going to have its comments turned off, or is this censorship only going to be available at the request of the advertiser?
How about not playing if it offends you so much?
Next!
I reset my case.
In Starwars Galaxies there where a few player riots that brought servers down. I dont recall the reason for them, but they where also brought on by user frustration.
This even caused SWG to make a "no assembly without player event" policy.
In the future i think we are going to see this more and more, as mass groups of people get upset at sites, games, etc, they will be able to take action just by logging in.
be slashdot news!? Gamers are angry & sexist all the time, (mostly thanks to Myg0t and the like), and it never amounts to anything. Also, on the rare occasion that it does, isnt this something for that mmo's forums!?
If you're just playing the game to have some fun, and don't care about historical "accuracy" or at least realism, this would be annoying and possibly offensive.
If you're playing it to experience a world, I think it's completely in line. Slavery, racism, and sexual discrimination are all part of history (and our world today), and being confronted with them in a online gaming experience could be much more powerful than, for example, reading in your textbook that Denmark abolished the African slave trade in 1803.
The Terranova link has a comment that says the discrimination was widespread and player based. That doesn't seem like it was discrimination from the organizers of the event. So although it's sad, I don't think they're in danger of losing a lawsuit.
There's been a lot of people using racial slurs on gaming servers lately. It's a shame that it's so widespread and that very few people say anything when it occurs during gameplay. I miss the days when you'd hear "nice shot" or "good luck" on a server instead of a bunch of insults.
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
While I did not personally attend the event, I have heard quite enough about it. The trader did not come from Egypt, but a foreign land. I've discussed this event way too much as it is though so I do not feel like going into it a length now. BTW, you already killed our wiki
So a game based in a period of human history would like to present a sterotype present in that time period... In one charecter (so far), widely regarded by many NPCs to be a theif and a scoundrel...
I'm tired of whitewashing history (will I be flamed by those who would consider that a racist remark?). Bad things happen, people were enslaved, tortured, killed, etc, based on pretty much anything. It was bad, we know that, lets move on, but lets also not forget that it happened.
Game publishers, programmers and authors should be applauded for being willing to tackle issues present in the period they choose to set their work, it is a difficult and tricky business.
Perhapps users could/(should?) be warned during charecter creation that their chosen avatar will effect game play, heck, list it as a feature. If you play female some NPCs wont trade with you, if you play a white guy you won't be able to jump, if you play someone of X decent you will be better at Y, etc.
paul reinheimer
"The implications of these condoned actions reached further than the expected sexual discrimination that showed on the surface, according to the in-game chat, the player known as Jaime, was reported to be a black female. She was appalled by the comments of "master" and "slave" because it reached far
deeper than male vs. female bringing in harsh reminders of racism."
Because African Americans were the only people to be enslaved throughout the world, naturally.
While a good deal of posters will take the objective viewpoint, I don't think you'll find a ton of sympathy for the female players here in slashdot.... Let's face it, most of these folk happen to be guys that are discriminated against by females every day.
Anyone who has played the game will know that ATITD is about roleplaying and community. It is about building a civilization, and rising as a civilization to meet challenges. I haven't played the game in a year and a half, but I think most of what was true then holds true now.
The incident in question (for those who didnt RTFA) involves a game event where a staff-controlled character, a merchant, travelled the world and traded with people. Females were treated as slaves - which, given the place and time that this role playing game portrays, was not necessarily an inaccurate representation. Should a game whose purpose is roleplaying (and to an extent, re-enactment) set thousands of years ago, represent modern day values? That is up for the players to decide. They took for granted modern day values, but never passed any laws to enforce them (which was entirely within their power).
So when an event-character comes along, behaving perfectly appropriately given the location, era, and currently enacted laws - yet inappropriately given modern day values - people are expressing outrage...
If the players wish to truly do something, a riot is the wrong way to go. This is a game that they have control over, and this was a challenge that was presented to them in game and should be met in-game. The players should use the legal system within the game to pass an equal rights act and abolish slavery.
Keep it in-game, where it belongs.
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
As a role player, I've played racist character (both for human races and various clans and/or species), sexist characters (try playing a 150 year old vampire from the deep south with*out* being racist and sexist), sadist, psychotic, mentally deficient, masochist, martyr, zealots of various natures, and members of the opposite sex plus a dozen races, species and creature types.
What the *hell* do they think role playing is?
Role playing the concentration camps of WWII results in some very dark moments and the introspection lasts long after the game is over - much the same as reading a powerful novel or history of the era. It makes for powerful literature, which is what role playing can be. The strong themes of discrimination exist historically, and since much of role play (including this work) often pulls from history, to exclude those aspects is to whitewash who we are and have been as human beings.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
No comments posted and the server is already Slashdotted. Of course the story doesn't say anything meaningful: "[...] a developer-run event used openly discriminatory language against the female gender. Details on the event can be found at the [host not responding]." So the question is: what was that event? Shouldn't it be mentioned in the story in the first place, assuming it is not only submitted to drive ad traffic to the website?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I agree. If a game is set in a place where men and women are treated differently in the societies (same with slaves), then this is perfectly valid.
If you don't like it, play like a man. Maybe being a woman has certain advantages, and being a man has others (like it would be in real life).
That being said.. I don't know if the game would be more fun.
Personally if I were playing a female character in such a setting.. I would expect it. Of course, it is important to set peoples expectations right.
Starting Score: 1 point
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...but still have some questions about the maturity of those involved.
1. Who thought adding this element was a Good Idea?
2. If the situation was historically accurate, what's the problem? Granted, the slurs were over the top, but if the game was about ancient Egypt, and women were actually treated like that, I don't see what the big deal is.
Either way, my original point remains; people get too jacked up over stupid shit these days.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
"mbonig" has been identified as Slashdot subscriber garcia in #slashchat.
Historicity aside, the last time I checked, at least within the USA, First Amendment rights still applied to everyone?
I understand that a large number of people seem to think that speech that falls outside of their personally "acceptable" boundaries should be prohibited, and sadly, a number of craven legislators have catered to this intellectually empty point of view.
Sticks and stones, stupid. If you don't like it, maybe you could simply turn off the computer? Vote with your feet. Play another game perhaps?
-Styopa
What happened some bulldyke got up in a tizzy since she couldn't find a vendor with a flannel shirt and some birkenstocks on it?
Sometimes I get really upset about things like this. No problem with the game or the game master, but with the people that rioted. Couldnt they be less pathetic?
We are talking about a game in Ancient Egypt, in that time woman WERE treated as slaves of men. Then, it is obsviouly that, a CHARACTER in that time would treat woman worst then man. And there is no problem with that, he is playing a character. Now, Im waiting for a bunch of people, to starting raging against Wolfstein: Enemy Territory because there is people who speks like nazy there, WHILE PLAYING AS NAZIS in an Second World War scenario.
--- May Lilith Bless our Souls
I propose to use openly discriminatory language against the developers.
How exactly do you riot in a multiplayer online game? I mean run around yelling? Can they destory buildings and burn fields? Storm the castle?
What?
Discriminatory language, riots, angry people... This is nothing! I once heard about an online game where one of the characters has commited a murder! Can you imagine?
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
In the event, the trader was from a far-away land, not Egypt. He was role played as a trader from a land where women were considered property, and was just expressing his beliefs. And really, I don't see how it can be considered sexist since many males play female characters and vice versa. Another point that can be made is that there has been "sexism" in the game since it was first created, since female avatars have always been able to weave canvas and linen faster, as well as reproduce certain vegetables and vegetable seeds better than males. It's strange that only once the tables are turned do we hear the complaints.
"The next generation of interesting software will be made on a Macintosh, not an IBM PC." -Bill Gates
/me looks angry /me throws a bottle a the ground
I just dont see how you can riot in any game, i just doubt theres a system fo it.
Like the saying goes, never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. -Pyrotic
IRC Server is #atitd on sorcery.
I know garcia. I don't like him or dislike him, but I do know him in 'real life'. He's not mbonig.
Should games take realism to the extent that they deny basic "current" human rights?
Human rights are denied to the tune of millions around the globe each day. Can gamers truthfully cry foul when their "virtual human rights" are impinged? Go spend some time in Saudi Arabia as a woman, in China as a Christian, in America as an arab, in Thailand as sex slave, in an Iraqi prison as an Iraqi... then tell me how realistic the denial of human rights are in your game.
Speak truth to power.
I saw the article, and was hoping to find details about a bunch of female characters running rampage through the game killing people and burning down buildings. Instead it sounds like another boring flame war.
So was there any sort of riot or was that just hyperbole?
This is actually pretty funny. A bunch of geeks rioting online...doesn't really strike fear in my heart. Really, try and picture it....HAHAHAHA.
eMelody Web Directory add your site today!
Let's not forget this is just a game. It is not some grand social experiment. It is a service that people pay for and when you type something out it is being read by a *person*, not an Avatar. If someone is playing the game and paying for it they have no responsibility to treat is as anything but a game. In college, you were payed to be experimented on. I think they have every right to expect a certain level of protection from this kind of insulting behaviour.
Would calling someone on another team a racial slur in the middle of a baseball game be okay? If it was just to get a reaction and not meant with ill will?
The "social experiment" of slavery and sexism has already been performed and it didn't go well. There is enough racism/sexism on the net without it being officially sanctioned by people who are taking your money...
parent is garcia trying to deflect attention from himself. do not believe his propaganda
When I first read the headline. I thought the riot happened in real life. Kudos for the game designers who kept the "riot" to the confines of cyberspace. (I am sure you have played many on-line games and if some certain players were within 2 meters of you, you would have smacked them silly with a clue-by-four.)
I would hate to think how Uncle Tom's Cabin as a multi-player adventure game would be retold without detracting from the setting and storyline.
I guess in this game (or any re-enactment) there is no director to yell "Cut!!..." so we can take a breath and step out of our roles and be human to each other.
The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done shall not interrupt the one who is doing it.
hahahahah hahahahah Uhhh, you said broad. Uhhhhh haahahahah hahahahaha hahahaha
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
If you dont like it, then TURN IT OFF. Is it that hard now? Alas, if on would so travel to other parts of the world, we'll see how good we have it here.
This is my signature.
Just leave me alone!
-garcia
Over thousands of years women have been treated as the 'lesser' beings, unable to vote, own land, etc.. etc.. etc. But I dont remember ever hearing about women quoting a disclaimer, a EULA, or the lack-therof. Instead, women have empowered themselves and have won liberation.
If these women want to be treated "equally" during a time (Ancient Egypt) where the game most likely accurately portrays them as "unequal", then they should be playing the game as women have been subject to sufferage for many years.
Keep the whining, the finger-pointing, and the who-said-whats in the game where it is meant to be and work it out in there. After all, its a game, so my advice to these women is: WIN!
Much better to play online games with guns. If someone offends you they get shot in the head. Or really if they don't offend you they get shot in the head anyways.
Historical accuracy aside, it's important to realize that the discrimination is taking place outside the game, not in it. Inviting women to play the game and then suddenly telling them that they can't play part of the game in the middle of the second season does seem kind of rude, if that's what happened.
A better question would be if this is consistant. Are women universally treated as slaves in the game? Have there been other side quests and story elements that locked women out? Are there any female-only parts of the game? If women are otherwise treated as equals in ability and options, then it doesn't make sense to cry historical accuracy now.
You can't say that this is ridiculous solely on the basis of the Slashdot writeup. Hopefully someone who knows more about the game will post further information, since the article is slashdotted right now.
Visit the
This kind of crap has always been widespread, from the times of the BBS to the times of the MMORPG's.
*Usually* the name calling, throwing a pissy fit, and the general hate comes from young boys. They have a lot of rage, and they can take it out in online games without fear of reprecussions.
I've been playing online games for many years now. Back with KALI + Descent 2, through UT and Tactical Ops, and through OU, EQ, and now EQ2. The crap's the same. It'll always be there. But in some places, it's much worse the others.
I ran some TacOps servers a couple years back, and it was a LOT of fun. We had some great kids and adults alike play on our servers, and we basically just went nuts. Marathons on single maps all night, clan wars, and everything else. But always there would be the little kidding that enter the server, do stupid shit, call people names, and eventually get banned.
There's actually a lot less of that kind of nonsense in games like Everquest. EQ's been out for awhile, and a lot of the players have been playing for years. The average age in many top guilds is in the mid-20's. While age along doesn't come close to stop people from being assholes, it does eliminate a lot of the name calling, racial slurs, and general chaos.
Hop on a UT2004 server, however, and you'll be playing with a bunch of punk 14 year old boys that have no problem calling you a *beep* beep *beep* because you killed them once out of the 25 times they killed you.
I await the games where you need to prove your age, and be at least 18 years old to play.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
It seems from the article that the "discrimination" was a personality trait of a character in the game. Would we also riot in response to a sexist character in a novel or movie? Or would we accept it as flavor and atmosphere of the world we were paying to be immersed in? The one catch I can see is that the female players were actually denied services in the game, which seems to be pretty unfair. Perhaps a better choice would have been to balance the sexism, perhaps creating another trader for females to use, that would not be available to males?
Just don't play a female character.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
ATITD itself doesn't have a whole lot of options for player conflict. It's primarily a non-combative nation-building game.
Essentially what happened was this guy was a trader, and his presence in an area was announced over the global channel. Thus, people came and lined up in the dozens/hundredish to see him.
Eventually one of the women stepped up to her place in line, the guy asked her 'Who is your master, woman?', and from there the righteous indignation began.
Players littered the area by dropping piles of sand and mud, filled the NPC's inventory (thus preventing him from moving) by giving him tons of sand, lit bonfires, spammed the chat channel constantly, etc. Eventually the NPC was forced to withdraw.
The ultimate motivation, as it has been said, was to pose a moral challenge to the players of the game. Do they trade with the nasty sexist NPC, or do they spurn him and his rare and exotic goods?
Personally I found the whole reaction to the event beyond pathetic. People rioted and basically trashed the area around the trader, but after that they went and bitched and moaned for 20ish pages on the message boards about how the developers were at fault, how they were so offended, how they were cancelling their accounts, blah blah blah. Pitiful.
Believe what you want, I would post logged-in but the last thing I need is the attention of trolls such as yourself.
I work with 'garcia'. Odd cause he doesn't look mexican. And his name is not garcia.
Well believe me or don't. I don't care. I'm merely informing you that garcia is not mbonig. I work with him, I've seen his internet history, he's not mbonig.
Whatever
I know that if I was paying a subscription for a game and found myself restricted from getting powerups just because I'm a guy with a beard who reads slashdot, I would get angry.
There's not much point in playing a game where a class of goodies, powerups etc. are unavailable because you picked the wrong class.
I wonder how many guys would be upset if a female trader went around selling goodies only to women? :)
If you say the word rape, in any context, in-game it leads to an instant suspension of banning if reported. While I don't quite agree with Ultima's decision I don't think this event held in ATTC2 was acceptable at all.
Are there any boundaries in role-playing? Some people seem to say no. Well, what if someone dresses up for an SCA event or Halloween as some offensive type character, and starts going off on someone in way most people would view as inappropriate (say, a person in a KKK costume and using the "n" word towards blacks/african-americans, etc.) Is that ok?
Since we don't live in ancient egypt, should we behave by today's standards in-game -- totally, partially, or not at all? Does role playing imply total immersion in character, or are there limits?
I also acceptable behavior should be very clearly defined so players know what to expect. I'm not well informed about the game, but I'd be curious what their policy states.
There was an incident years ago in EQ I think where someone playing a Dark Elf, either roleplayed or wrote about raping another in-game character (not a NPC, it was a PC acct). I recall it was quite graphic and, to me anyway, disturbing. I believe the player was banned, some said it was role-playing, others said it crossed the line. Was a huge debate. Thoughts?
Ok, some stuff to mull over -- I think it's an interesting topic as mmorpgs and rpgs continue to get more interesting and immersive.
'The unexamined life is not worth living' - Socrates
An example of a game going to far would be a game that causes a direct, linkable physical effect on players. This is just people getting bent out of shape because they still have the mentality of a 10 year old.
Political Correctness is an example immaturity, and these people railing against something that has no effect on them except through their self-deluded state of being offended is not what anyone should classify as news.
Games aren't fun, they're an addiction. And oh yeah, I love it.
But the kind of games I play are real. I play tennis :) I have the most fun playing that. oh, and the occassional ut2k4 with the bots.
Do these games ever have character's that are at a disadvantage from their beginning/creation based on characteristics other than sex? If so, do people identify with those characters and complain to the developer? I am quite serious, I don't play these games so I don't know.
http://www.busyweather.com/
You flood the chat with things like "myg0t pWns u"
Live forever, or die trying.
Women are to these geeks as alien as Frankenstein or a visitor from another planet. Not understanding these creatures, and having such limit access and exposure to them, (I like exposure better) they lash out. It's a sad day when a young developer, starved for female attention, turns to loathing and ridicule. It's a cry for help, I tell you!
Irony - The use of words to express something different from and often opposite to their literal meaning.
That ain't irony, son!
Blar.
Don't you mean learn from the past? The worst thing we could do is forget the past. These days unfortunately way too many people are all too happy to forget the lessons of the past.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I'm tired of whitewashing history (will I be flamed by those who would consider that a racist remark?). Bad things happen, people were enslaved, tortured, killed, etc, based on pretty much anything. It was bad, we know that, lets move on, but lets also not forget that it happened.
I agree completely.
Actually, I for one always understood the expression as something of a double entendre with a deliberate racist bent. And rightly so, since painting a 'white' view of history is especially dangerous, let alone insensitive and unfair. But the analogy it draws to covering things up, in order to bring the present to "order", is also equally unjust.
It comes close to that line between necessarily sanitizing one's speech from things "profane" (sensorship) and prescribing rules for thought (crimethink). This is especially appropriate given the discussion, and is probably a beter idiom to describe your comment than most slashdotters could summon.
With that I'll add: we have only to fear history if our hearts are vengeful.
I'm not the same guy you're replying to, but I just have a question. How on earth could you possibly know that garcia is not mbonig? I'm not saying whether or not the statement is true. I'm just saying that it is IMPOSSIBLE to know. I appear to be a pretty straight-shooting guy. But if my coworkers or boss knew everything that I did online I'd probably be in jail :)
I see the point that people should stop whining .. after all it's just a game, and if you're playing a female character in ancient egypt, you run the risk of falling victem to sexism... Duh.
On the other hand... it is just a game. It is meant for entertainment... if something in a game directly becomes an obstacle of enjoyment, isn't that a game design flaw, and not a "feature" ?
One thing I will say: I like how the owner is sticking to his guns. He obviously has a "fuck em" vision where he sees this game as having negative experiences being part of the overall experience... I kind of dig that.
---- How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. -Shakespeare
That is the irony I was pointing out. I guess you missed it.
Vivid Video Disembowelment Inc to split three for one. In other news, we have one bankruptcy to report. The company that labored to develop the multi-player computer role-playing game called "Political Corrections" has gone out of business. To date, the open-sourced code for the game has garnered zero downloads. Simon Pure, former CEO of the company, released the source when no buyer could be found for the rights to the game and the producers of "Barney and Friends" dropped their options on the game citing its unreality and lack of relevance to any known target audiance or demographic. A few conservative christian customers had purchased the game but returned it when they found the game's filters and rules made it impossible to create what they considered realistic characters for John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, or anyone from Massachusetts. Reaction from customers was muted. One player said "I liked the cool laser cannons and way the flesh would blister when you zapped the other players but when it wouldn't let my character call Kerry a douchebag, I tossed it.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
If the bit... slaves wanted it badly enough, I'm sure they could have exchanged pictures of their boobies in return for the opportunity to trade.
Even if this comment is modded as funny, it is quite an insightful comment.
This is role-playing. If I play D&D and I can't enter the realm of elves because I am a mere human, will I quit playing because this game is racist? No, because that is "Role-playing", and playing a role in a defined environment is the *point* of the game.
The female players could have decided to play a male character instead, and they would *never* have been treated inequally because they were women.
Thus, it is not the *player* who is victim of sexism, but the *character*. If you can't make the difference, you shouldn't be role-playing.
perception is reality
Is it a social event, or an RPG? Let's be clear, RPG stands for Roll Playing Game.
It's like acting. Kevin Spacey isn't REALLY dead from a gunshot wound to the back of the head. He didn't REALLY cut what-er-name's head off and stick it in a box to freak Brad Pitt out.
Kids today. Never played a real (paper & pencil) RPG. I used to play a character that was always shooting off racial slurs at Dwarves. In fact, once he was at quite a high level, he engaged in a campaign of Dwarficide. THAT'S NOT REAL.
So, if you are in a game, playing a character that should be treated a certain way within the context of the game let's try to do two things. 1. Don't be surprised and 2. Remember it is one FICTIONAL character mistreating another FICTIONAL character. You are not your fucking character.
Hallelujah, holy shit, where's the tylenol?
-Peter
ITYM, "Like what, bitch?"
Exactly! Quit yer whining and do something about it, like refuse to produce food for the males in the game - or withhold sex IRL. Works for me. ;-P
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
Many people have said, "Well, it's a game, and racism, bigotry, etc have played a part in our history, that doesn't mean it's ok to use." For crying out LOUD, the player refuses to trade with women. Oooooh!
... a civil war game and the NPC said, "I don't trade with niggers." That's one thing.. but refusing to trade with someone because they're a woman? Not really a big deal.. it's not like the NPC said, "Your place is either on your knees or in the kitchen."
If it was something like
People who worry about this stuff generally aren't worth the hassle. We, as a society, tend to laugh and ignore them. It's like those idiots who complained that Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers should be renamed because of 9/11. Give me a FUCKIN BREAK.
This is the same line of thinking that causes women to say, "Women has 'men' in it, they are oppressive, therefore, we are WOMYN." Yeah, really overkill there and you're just making yourselves look stupid and HURTING the cause you think you're actually fighting for.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
How many players are going to choose to be female in the game if that sort of event is common? Such belittling attitudes will attract one crowd and drive away another. "Archie Bunker" is a poor comparison, since any offensive topics or behavior exist only within the pages and are not directed at the reader. This game directed the offense at the players - simply based on the character they had chosen to play. In such a context, they might wind up with a mostly male set of character (and a few female "slaves" played by individuals who take pleasure in such a role).
There is another possibility, I suppose, that would depend on how many players (not just female) found the action offensive. A large band of players working in concert could force a change through actions in the game. A small band of players complaining in a forum - sometimes incoherently - isn't going to change the mind and behavior of the developer.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Specifically, the point of the game in question is to build a nation and it's government. The rules of conduct of the game do not actually bar in type of behavior other than those destructive to the server and/or theft of services.
It's always been a stated objective that the players of the game are responsible for writing the laws and rules of conduct of the game. New laws are written on petitions, and the top signature carrying petitions are put on a weekly voting ballot. Whichever petition wins on the ballot is put into the actual game code (with provisions for veto based for technical reasons).
I've seen petitions to implement a 'Law enforcement group' that specifically targetted and banned those using discriminatory/hateful language by setting up what amounted to be groups of jack-booted thugs. Those petitions are often the first to be voted down, mostly because all the players of the game are suspicious of giving power to other players.
I've seen other petitions for automatic systems of punishment, where a player's reputation is tracked and accounted for over time. There's one in the pipeline now, although I personally do not hold it in high regard.
The one common thing these petitions all have is that none of them have succeeded on the ballot. At the moment, the game is more or less a democratic anarchy, where most players just rely on a common sense of courtesy to resolve their differenances and/or for the GMs to babysit and pamper them for all their needs. Some of them are just now beginning to understand that the GMs of this game aren't there to babysit them.
So going back to your original statement, the GM did not ignore the community's rules of conduct, as there were none at the time. Some folks had a common expectation, but none of that was actually 'agreed upon' by the rest of the community.
Take a lousy five minutes and do the following Google search before responding as if you know anything:
http://www.google.com/search?q=role+of+women+in+a
Here's what Herodotus had to say:
If you don't like it, don't play it.
About the only thing I see wrong with this situation is the developer didn't say that participants may be subjected to conduct they find offensive (oh, wait.. they did, didn't they?)
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Why do women fake orgasms? ...because they think men care.
Best non-PC joke ever!
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
It's all fun and games till someone gets pancaked by a Manta.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
I have wondered for some time now when video games would become advanced enough that ethical treatment of the characters would be an issue. This was originally sparked by the question, at what point do AI/NPC characters gain rights of their own? If DOOM 2025 contains an intelligence so lifelikeand advanced as one of the creatures, would it be wrong to kill it? How about simulating actual people instead of monsters? Is there a point where it becomes wrong?
Personally, I think we are a looooong way away from that point, but eventually I think it might happen. Extrapolating from that though, what else is wrong to do to another character? Why is it okay to murder (frag) someone in Quake, Everquest, etc. but not ok to call them racial/sexual/whatever slurs? From what I understand, the argument in the article was about the treatment based on the CHARACTERS in the game, not the players behind them. If I play a woman but am a man in real life, then my character should be treated like a woman. The opposite is also true. Since it is a game, that treatment is up to whoever wrote the game. Vote with your dollars. If you don't like a game, don't buy it. But why can't other people who do want to play that kind of game do so? Personal responsibility here people. If you're worried about your kids playing it, then don't let them. If you're worried that they will play it at a friend's house, then talk to their friend's parents.
Text from the ATITD wiki:
/for/ some of them as slaves. This did not go over well at all, and he was eventually hounded out of Sinai, by a small revolt led by Logicritus, after peddling one or two of his wares for some expensive items. He later turned up in Karnak to do the same, with the same result.
TheTraderMalaki
The first real Egypt-wide plot in Tale 2.
The Chauvanistic Thief
During a day much like any other, the Pharaoh announced to Egypt the arrival of a trader to the Sinai chariot stop. He passed in and quickly introduced himself as Malaki, claiming to be from a far off land and having items for trade. Among these things were rarities such as a fragile grapevine and soul jars. The relations quickly turned sour, however, as his mannerisms tended towards those greatly undesirable within Egypt. He would not trade with women, and made references to trading
The Sultan's Daughter
Soon after he went into hiding, an agent of the Sultan quickly met with players at the Sinai chariot stop -- a woman named Ashari, who stated that Malaki was a thief and a scoundrel. This latter came as no surprise, but what did was the fact that he had evidently stolen items from the royal family, including the Soul Jars, items which are said to bring good luck. It was surmised that these contained the spirits of ancestors, and one was quickly returned by Tenebrius to her who had traded for it in exchange for a perfect shovel. Other players may have done the same. Ashari is the daughter of the Sultan, and wishes to return Malaki to justice.
Paths
Naturally, the paths the storyline can take are numerous. However, here is what might be done to bring in a form of law, and establish good relations...
- Find Malaki and capture him for Ashari. If anybody sees him at a chariot stop, they are to notify either Ashari or the Sultan.
- Establish trade relations with Persia(?) by placing a sample of tradable items in a public-stashable chest at 2649,5525.
- Return the items, including rare vines and soul jars, to Ashari.
If all these are done, it is likely our two countries will find peace with each other."
Male domination in the world is still not a distant memory. There are still some areas of the world where women are treated as second-class citizens. Hell, in Egypt there is still a widespread underground practice of female circumsion, where the clitoris of females is removed prior to puberty, despite a ban. Women are still exploited today, and this game tries to return us to that time.
Would you want to play in a role-playing game stationed in the South before the Civil War as a slave? If all the characters were slaves, it might be appropriate. But, would you enjoy role-playing the plantation owner who abuses other slave PCs? What makes it unsettling is that it makes us recall the inequality in our own society. That reflection could be good if it made us think about the oppression and avoid it, but it's more likely to glorify the previous time where the oppression was rampant (as evidenced by many of the sexist comments made by slashdotters here).
It's a social duty to oppose this game. Everyone in the game should riot and refuse to play until the sexist character is removed. If we want our society to move forward away from oppression, we have to want equality.
Historical accuracy is not a necessity here. The attempt to inject discrimination is just desperation by the authors trying to get attention and sell their game. It's a disgusting and gross exploitation in itself in the real world.
In other words, some idiot said something stupid about a group of people that offended those people...
And the lines between real world and MMORPG blurs....
Haven't you ever taken a woman out on a date in a slave collar and lead? Oh, right, this is Slashdot.
every game of counterstrike I play someone calls me a homo. I'm not a homo, but I don't try to sue anyone over it. I just try to shoot them in the game.
the nature of any game in which you fight for things is very male-oriented. calling your opponent names is just part of that ruthlessness.
eventually you'll have to ban dirty language on servers. but then young males will leave the games after awhile in favor of a game they like more.
maybe kids will start to play football again. and Im not talking about soccer.
What about strip clubs ? Women are treated as sexual objects there too !
*chuckles*
*Proceeds to get blow-job from secretary*
(Disclaimer: I am NOT clinton
I find it facinating that everyone just assumes that women in ancient Egypt were subservient. Where is the evidence for this? Contrary to public opinion, as a simple search on the role of women in ancient Egypt on Google will attest, the historical record suggests that woman in Egypt had legal parity with men.
... just as weomen hardly enjoy equal rights today in Pakistan, despite the fact that the country has had a female leader (who even as prime minister was not allowed to look into the eyes of a male).
... it leads me to believe that most of the "women" in game were actually men in drag. Although perhaps not ... it will be interesting to watch how women in the United States react when, as a consiquence of their inaction and apathy, the "unthinkable" happens and they lose their freedom of choice under Roe v. Wade and find their bodies chattal of the state for nine months again -- something most people like to believe will never happen, but the current administration for whom some many women are naively voting has publicly stated as one of their objectives. Will they riot, as so many psuedo-women have in game? Or will they engage in more intelligent civil disobedience and political activity, as they have so many times in the past to achieve parity under the law. My money, based on historical evidence, is on the latter ... which again is why I suspect so many of the "women" in this game were in fact played by men. Rioting has generally been, in most historical contexts anyway, such a "male" response.
That is debated among historians. While Egypt did have female rulers, it does not appear that women were equal among the working masses
What isn't debated among historians is that women in many other parts of the world in that day and age were not treated at all equally, and indeed were treated as property/slaves/etc by many cultures.
Had you RTFAed, you would have noticed that the character being played was not from Egypt, he was from a distant land. Historically, the odds that said culture would be sexist as hell (to put it mildly) were quite high.
As others noted, the players took modern day equal rights for granted. Something they really shouldn't be doing, in reality today with Bush et. al. bent on rolling women's rights back to pre-1960s status, and certainly not in a role playing game set in ancient Egypt.
Riotinig (in game or otherwise) is so asinine
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I don't see how calling the pissed off women 'chicks' is ironic by those two definitions.
I can't deduce an apparant and a different intending meaning in his wording...please explain.
Blar.
The problem is that these riots in the net have absolutely no effect on people's lifes. As long as this guy is "Teppy", he does not give a rat's behind about people critizicing him in some newsgroup.
This only hits home when it becomes real, tangible. As long as it stays in the virtual nameless world and this is a bunch of characters, this protest will have no effect at all.
Get a picture of this guy, find out his real name, send the article with the picture to his neighbours, his sister, his mother and his girlfriend. Start heckling him in a game conference.
He won't be so fucking brave in front of 10 women screaming at him. "Daddy" will probably shit in his pants. When his girlfriend dumps him, his female friends stop talking to him, when he gets fired from his job for being discriminatory towards women and the lady at the DMV asks him "is your mommy going to give you your driver's license?, who is your mommy?", only then he will know that he is in trouble.
If that doesn't happen, it won't matter, this will not affect him in any way.
In this particular case, yes, this campaign may be done in the net, but it has to loose the anonymity and it has to reach people that are connected to him in the real world.
By the way, the same goes for Open Source. Sending questions on Slashdot to Nader or Cobb is not political action. It is only the ilussion of action. I know that this is absolutely against our geek nature, but the truth is that our weight in the political life is null because we don't combine the virtual and the real world in a balanced way.
When the patent lawsuits start coming in (mark my words, they will), anything that we write in Slashdot will not matter if we are not organized politically.
Do you think that the civil rights or the women's rights struggles could have ocurred in the net? It is only in the streets where those things get decided.
True, you can discuss and organize such an action in the net, but you have to take it to the streets at some point or it's worthless.
...have to be politically correct?
I've read plenty of fantasy books where a race/culture/ethinicity is discriminated against/hated/destroyed; but I don't write the author bitching that the characters in the book should show tollerance to eachother.
Fantasy games set in a fictional setting are just that - *fiction*. Everquest has hundreds if not thousands of 'factions', but I don't complain to the developers when that racist ogre vendor wont sell, and instead, threatens to eat, my gnome.
I'd just call this another example of how people get WAY too absorbed into some RPG games (mainly of the MMO variety). Step back, reailze you're playing a game, and that if you DON'T like it, simply don't play it, let alone pay for it. I'm sick of these fucks stepping in with nerf lets-all-hug-eachother bats and turning all fantasy into some sick hippy carebear land crap. If I want to see that shit day in and day out I'll stay at school, thanks.
So, that is what it is all about? First of all, this seems like a realistic game. Seriously, what do you actually expect playing a woman in ancient Egypt, unless your name is Cleopatra? Second of all, this is a discrimination against female characters, not against female players, for any female player can play with a male character and vice versa. When those players cannot see the difference between players and characters, between the game and the reality, now that is a problem indeed.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I only read +4 or higher rated posts, discriminating against the poor bad posts and flamebaits. Is there going to be a riot on slashdot?
"openly discriminatory language against the female gender"
That phrase makes me nauseous. It's openly attacking sensible use of the English language.
It also shows up on contemporary Japanese maps wherever there is a temple, though I'm not sure if it is the same orientation (clockwise/counter-clockwise, rotated 45 degrees or not) used by the Nazi Party.
My other first post is car post.
Rosa Parks and MLK did not riot or advocate violence in any form. Please, Reread your history of the 1960's.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
An anti-slavery and sufferage movement?
This disgruntled player sounds ready to be a leader.
...or maybe not.
The internet is a big place. You're bound to run into people whose views can clash with yours. If you don't like it, feel free to disconnect at any time.
Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip. - Homer Simpson
What is this?? It's ok to treat people badly based on gender, but not based on race? How is it any different? This seems totally uncalled for.
I get the impression from the article that the developer is the problem in this case. The actions - locking the thread and setting up a "debate" while having no intention of changing - indicate that this developer is not going to listen to these complaints. Bottom line might make a difference, but as I said, they may gain other players because of the behavior. I am curious what the outcome of the riot was -- were the majority of the players rioting in protest or were most rioting with only a few actually protesting?
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Both?
I wasn't actually there because I don't bother to go to any of the 'stand in line, get stupid rare crap' events. However, I heard of what happened there and have... witnessed... a 'riot' before.
I would suspect that many of the participants weren't really outraged over the sexist trader, but in the mood to just trash stuff on principle. Since the game lacks a way to deal with pent up aggression, and people were feeling pissy over the slow development of the game as compared to the last version, they took it out on the trader.
Many folks who decided to 'quit' afterward weren't quitting because of the sexist guy himself, but were already disgruntled over how the game was progressing. The trader was simply the spark that lit the brushfire.
OK, so a character in-game behaved in a manner that many foud offensive. Various people defend the situation, claiming that it is appropriate and realistic within the gaming context. A large number of offended players made their displeasure known, also within the game, and somehow this is inappropriate.
Yes, I'm sure there were plenty of misogynists in ancient Egypt who treated women like slaves. But remember, even in real life, if you treat the wrong people like slaves at the wrong time when the numbers aren't in your favor then they will rise up and riot. It seems that's just what happened here. It's hypocritical to defend one as appropriate game play at the expense of the other.
Who's to say that a riot wasn't the appropriate way to respond? Yes, there may have been other more formalized avenues for addressing people's grievances. But that often doesn't work in the real world, so why shoudl we expect it to work online? Sure the world may have been modeled after ancient Egypt, but it's not going to follow along those because the people populating it aren't ancient Egyptians.
Grow up and spend some time in your *real* life.
Star Wars Galaxies. Plenty of serveer shutdowns going on there over protests recently.
[sig]darkfus[/sig]
I played dartmud for sometime. More than once I have seen "racism" against avatar races. A public call to "string up all the elves" or "not let any elves into the city" (I am citing one instance here). There were Elven races right there in the vicinity. They heard these threats and quite frankly racist comments. Little was said or done. CAUSE ITS A FREAKING GAME PEOPLE! Jumping Jesus, calm down. Yes racism/sexism is bad, even in a fantasy world, but like real life, there are people like that, for better or worse. If it bothers you, plot against them, kill them, whatever you like, cause it's a game. I think everyone needs to take some time off, stop playing, step outside and breathe the air of the "real world" for a moment or two.
If we don't make light of everything, we are just stumbling in the dark - Blank
Lord British shall have his revenge, murderer!
So did the cops come in and break up the riot with water cannon or/and Pepper spray? If not, it wasn't much of a riot now was it.
Im sorry to mention this, but it's a GAME. IT'S FICTIONAL. You shouldn't be anymore upset than those who play Drow in AD&D get when someone "discriminates" against them. If you want to be offended in character than do so. However, if you take it out of the game, it's your own fault for doing so! Stop blurring the distinctions between fantasy worlds and real life. Even if this was "some guys fantasy," it doesn't change what you knew you were doing when you played the game, entering some developer's fantasy world.
At what point does an online game take controversial social issues too far? Most online gamers know of The Sims and The Sims Online, a game where players create characters and take them through realistic life trials such as dating, marriage, having children, job and even such mundane activities using the bathroom, sleeping and eating. However, what about games that introduce serious social issues such as racism and sexual discrimination?
Most of the popular, high traffic online games have End-User License Agreements that protect players from harassment and prohibit personal attacks based on a person's race, national origin, ethnicity, religion, gender, lifestyle choice, and disability. If players come across such attacks, they may contact a Game Master within the game and an investigation will ensue. If found guilty, the player(s) will be punished ranging from a warning to a temporary ban from the game to a permanent ban from the game. What avenues do players pursue when the game doesn't maintain an End-User License Agreement or the gaming staff participates in such personal attacks?
On Saturday, October 16, 2004, A Tale in the Desert, owned and operated by Andrew Tepper (also known as Teppy and Pharaoh, in-game) of eGenesis, sponsored and condoned a game-wide event that introduced sexual discrimination, upsetting a large portion of female players. The event was known throughout the game as "The Trader Malaki" in which a character named Malaki traveled throughout Egypt trading rare goods. Players lined up,waiting a great deal of time, to trade with Malaki but when a female character's turn to trade came, she was greeted with comments such as "Who is your master?", refusing to trade good with her stating that he did not trade with "slaves." As the event continued, female characters were continually treated to defamatory slurs and sexual discrimination, inciting a riot within the game.
Outrage from female players flooded the Atitd.net forums reaching sixteen pages of discussion before the forum administrator closed the topic. In light of the numerous female players threatening to quit the game, Tepper decided to hold a chat for all players to see; he asked a female player who stated that she would leave the game based on the actions of the event to join him in the chat while they debated the previous night's event.
During the discussion, Tepper compared the game to The Archie Bunker Show, explaining that the game brings in difficult topics and players should accept it for its entertainment value. The analogy was terribly flawed and further upset the female population. The player tried to explain why she felt the sexist comments were inappropriate but stumbled through without much effect. In the end, Tepper stated that he will continue to "create situations that cause some discomfort."
Tepper admited that he worries about children playing the game, "Whenever someone calls me and says 'oh, I love to play ATITD with my kids' I get a little uncomfortable." Looking around the ATITD Official website the only mention is a brief statement in the Rules of Conduct which state "We do not have a policy against offensive behavior, but be aware - if you offend the other players, they have the power to punish you. They can even exile you permanently from the land of Egypt - game over, don't come back. If you choose to behave in a way that is annoying to other players, we will not protect you from the wrath of the other players." Unfortunately, this only protects players from other players; what avenue of support do players
receive when the game developers themselves are offensive? He continued on to state, "I've gone out of my way to point out that some *truly* insulting stuff happens in this game." He further admits to allowing a swastika sculpture in the first ATITD game, refusing to tear it down. The only
protection players have is against each other through the power of laws and a democratic society. Sadly, there is absolutely no protection for players from the staff themselves, nor does
Blah. Feminists are funny people, they'd protest for something like this when their argument has no basis whatsoever - would they rather have us portray black women as plantation owners? It was a HISTORICAL story - how else did they expect us to set it up as?
.
Interestingly enough, there actually were black slave-owners
Of course, you wouldn't have been able to present that story either.
And it's ashame, too, because making slavery an entirely black versus white issue only encourages more hostility between the races.
Why do you assume that all women are pro-choice?
This is not real life, this is a ROLE Playing Game. Women were not discriminated against, female characters, many of whom were likely played by males, were discrimated against. This is no different than if the GM were playing someone "good" aligned, telling all the "evil" people that they were not worthy of purchasing his goods. However, had this happened, it would have been accepted in the spirit in which it was presented. But because it happened to parallel a real life situation, all the real females felt persecuted. If you don't like what happened TO YOUR CHARACTER, how about starting a women's movement in the game? The GMs would probably love the idea, and all the great opportunities for role play that it would present.
While I certainly understand the perspective of the offended players, I can understand the point of view of the developers as well.
This is a fascinating example of why, despite what a bunch of people in this thread have stated, Online worlds are every bit as real as the 'real' one because they're inhabited by real people. Events in a MMOG can make you happy, sad, or angry just as easily as real world events. The line between the game world and the real one blurs because of the player's participation in both.
I see the method to Teppy's madness, and it'll be interesting to see what future choices he makes along these lines will be.
But the same applies. Good gravy, look at the modern Middle Eastern countries that we count among our friends. Read the Quran or Old Testament. They're not exactly feminist tracts (and the Law of the Prophets is actually worse than the Quran). There's little point in playing a historical or geographically placed game if you want to pretend that it's just San Francisco circa 2004 with a little more sand.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I prefer:
My grandfather died in a concentration camp. He fell off a guard tower!
The delivery's important with that one... typing it sort of kills it a bit.
admin_ban
That's all the riot police you'll ever need.
Really? "Feminists" (as a whole, you imply) are "*silent*" about the treatment of women in Islamic societies (both abroad and here)?
That's the most aburdly wrong thing I've heard all day.
Tell me, did someone give you this idea? Or did you invent this notion yourself?
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
Quit your whining. It is a game. People don't get all excited when a girl in a movie is married off, or forced to undergo female circumsicion (topics I have seen in several movies recently). This game sounds to be slightly RPGish. The GM was playing the role of the character. Sounds like he had some good wares to sell, and some girl players were bitter they couldn't get them.
Hey I applied for a job once, and I was told this at my second interview.
"Your refereces are great, and we'd really like to hire you, we really need someone with expierence. Unfortunatly we do not have an opening for any men at this time."
Hey that wasn't a game, that was real life. I walked out and took my skills elsewhere.
The lesson?
You are playing on this guys game. If you do not like how he runs the game, stop playing it.
How hard is that?
I tried playing D&D as a Drow, but my DM said the shopkeeper refused to sell me anything when I went to purchase supplies in a town. In fact, when all the citizens of the town found out I was there, they grabbed torches and pitchforks and chased me away!
So what if mainstream Drow civilization is a blood thirsty horde commanded by a cruel matriarchy, and takes orders from an evil spider demon queen from the abyss? I don't think it is a big deal that most Drow only want to kill or enslave all the surface dwellers.
Refusing service to my character because I am a Drow is unfair discrimination and I don't see why my DM doesn't apologize to me.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
The way everyone is acting, youd think that someone had organized a nude protest in downtown Brittania.
Besides, exactly how much rioting can happen in an online game anyway? Sooner or later everyones mother will get sick of the noise and send the kiddies to bed.
I started with nothing and I still have most of it.
Well since you jerks at Slashdot have stampeded all over our Forums and Wiki, depriving me of some late Friday afternoon entertainment before leaving work, I will have to comment on the "trader Malakai" event here.
Background. ATITD is an odd MMORPG of ~2000 players, English French and German speaking, from 6 continents (at least). The player base tends to be literate and older than usual MMO's. Roughly half of the attendees at our recent player meet were women. To Teppy's chagrin, many players do not distinguish between their real person and their avatar. According to an anonymous survey on the Forum, most players have the same gender as their avatar.
Event summary. A system-wide announcement that the trader Malakai from foreign lands is walking to a easily-accessible destination in the world. (Announcement implies that Malakai is being played by a game master.) Malakai has some useful, some unique, and some worthless items. Malakai is dishonest in trades. Further, he won't trade with women (avatars), calls them slaves and inquires about purchasing one. Egyptians become angry, handing Malakai dung and other items to prevent him from further trades. One citizen posts a very upset post to the Forums, stating that said citizen is a black woman and found the trader's behavior personally offensive. A debate ensues.
A noblewoman searching for Malakai arrives, claiming that Malakai has stolen the items he is trading from her family. Some people who have traded with the noblewoman give the stolen goods back. Now hunted by both Egypt's citizens and his countrymen, Malakai disappears.
Effects? A huge debate ensues on the Forum and in-game. Some women are absolutely offended by this event. The GM who ran Malakai gives a lame description of what was supposed to happen at this top-secret, hastily put-together event. Offended by this top-secret event, Egypt's best roll-playing GM quits the game. Perhaps three dozen others quit as well. Pharaoh ("Teppy") interviews one of the quitting players (who won't give her real identity). During the interview, Pharaoh fails to justify this event on any firmer ground than his whim.
My thoughts. Malakai was a poorly concieved character who would have been a lot more interesting had the whole events team been involved in creating it. The GM who ran Malakai is a great coder but a sadistic, yet dull role-player. I hope that in the future he asks for help in creating these evil characters. Sensitive and difficult issues are worthwhile to address in our little society, but hurting people in order to address these points should not be necessary. IMHO, the main problem with this event was that it hurt some people in order to make a larger point.
Another poster pointed this out, but it is sort of late to complain about sexism. Female avatars had a slight advantage before this event, now they are slightly adversely affected by this one event. I do hope this event brings these issues to the front, because there are some real issues of balance between the genders that should be addressed in the game.
--Erika
I understand your plight, sisters. I can't play Counterstrike without getting called a "fag". They also call me a "pussy". To be equated with female genitalia! How demeaning!
Oh, but it gets worse. It goes way beyond male/female, and into slavery. Your game's character asked who your master is. My game's players insist that they ARE my master, or that they "0wn" me. As someone who knows someone who is of a descendency that was slaved at some point in history, it offends me to my very core.
But it's not all from players. It's company sponsored too. One company advertised a game whose lead guy insisted I would be made "his bitch".
Sister, stand strong. We won't tolerate this kind of treatment!
> As others noted, the players took modern day equal rights for granted. Something they really shouldn't be doing, in reality today with Bush et. al. bent on rolling women's rights back to pre-1960s status
As for rolling back women's rights, how about the Islamofascists that Bush is fighting? The liberation of Afghanistan helped restore women's rights to the 21st century, rather than the 11th century the Taliban had them in...
- Crow T. Trollbot
I think they misspelled "Tale".
Losing a lawsuit?! Even if it was done purely my game designers, and even if it was much worse, this is a discrimination against female characters, not against female players, for any female player can play with a male character and vice versa. You cannot possibly discriminate against something which is completely optional and arbitrarily chosen by everyone!
Let me use an example. When I say that only people with some shade of skin can go to my restaurant or work at my company, this is discrimination, because no one affected can do anything about it. But when I say that only people wearing a suit can go to my restaurant or work at my company, it is not discrimination.
Now, when those players cannot see the difference between players and characters, between the game and the reality, now that is a problem indeed.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
How is it different than the role of fat-ass Americans now?
This is what drives me crazy about capitalists. They'll rant and rave about their exports being taxed $50K for entering Asia-Pac as being "anti free trade", but are *silent* about similar protection granted to their inefficient industries.
What gives? You'd think that they'd be barricading every WTO meeting, demanding free trade for all.
If a character or monster or another player (I've never played this particular game, excuse my ignorance) were to come at you swinging a sword, presumably you would react in character and fight back, run away, etc. But you wouldn't stand there and whine, "I paid my money to play this game and I don't expect my character to be physically attacked."
So when somebody verbally abuses your fantasy character, why not draw a weapon, say something like, "I'm no slave, take that back or stand and fight," and let the game proceed? Other like-minded players could join the fight on your side, and you might have a really interesting evening of role-playing rather than a group hissy fit.
You're an idiot.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
Why....I remember it like it was yesterday. There we all were...the greatest race in all of Norrath. Trollkin for as far as the eye could see (or at least as far as the swamp gas would allow). We were happy. We danced...we frolicked...we were peaceful and loved our neighbors and the wilderness of the swamp. All those stories of barshin' an squishin' were racist attacks by those anti-trollkin light-skinned races. The man was trying to hold us down but we remained free and happy....
Then the frogs came. In a blatantly racist attack, Sony sent legions of racist frogs in to take our land, rape our livestock, and kill our children. We found ourselves a broken people, forced to wander for years and years.
Even now we find ourselves singled out in towns. Children point at our warty skin and bulbous noses. They complain about the smell of our uncured hide armor.
How can we, as free thinking Americans, Europeans, Asians and the like allow this kind of blatant racism to exist in fantasy worlds!!!! Have you seen how they treat Dark Elves in EverQuest II?!?!?! It is shameful!!!!
Again, this is why American society is the way it is. I can't believe somebody is upset over this. It's a damm GAME for goodness sake. Personally i would be ASHAMED to cry about something like this. What i want to point out here is that whenever some minivan driving soccer-mom get a taste of the REAL WORLD she gets upset. well i have news for you and the rest of the hippies out there - THE WORLD SUCKS GET USED TO IT. That's why the rest of the world wants to kill us. They are sick and tired of us bitching about how the grass ain't green enough in front of town hall, video game violence and gay rights. America has disintegrated into a bunch of blathering babies running around in circles whenever sombody mentions REALITY. I'm tired of this country.....and.....I BLAME CANADA!!!! :)
I think that's awful.
My solution: Never buy the game, or any sequels.
The story used the term "13 seasons" which in RP paralance on the server she was on, referred to 13th Level, not 13 yrs old.
Egyptians and other North African women don't have large enough breasts to get me interested enough in the online roleplaying experience for me to post a reply under my slashdot user id.
In context it may be justafiable, by playing a sexist "evil character." However, people must realize that many people don't roleplay in the game. So to them, it can be considered harrassment/descrimination targeting them. Further more, this is from the GMs/implementors, giving the game producers a very poor image.
Now let us say you were playing a rpg with paper and pencil, with a DM. Let us say that one of the ways he/she makes the game interesting is by making one of the NPC's a sexest merchant. Does this make the other players want to protest the DM, or the game in general? I think not.
Because those feminists are smart enough to know they'll get their asses clubbed, raped, and either shot or beheaded. The Taliban used to get results like that, and the guys in Darfur have been getting results like that. If your man crosses us, we'll just gang-rape your 9 year old daughter and wife for a few days, more than likely ending that failed genetic line.
Fems know they have the luxury of "freedom of speech" over here, just like any other good business. A university (which is just a special-case business) works the same way; only fight battles that you can possibly win.
Sadly, I've known several women murdered by their husbands, and I'm in no way involved in the domestic violence support field.
Here is a summary of a report on domestic violence in the US. An excerpt from the end:
Getting even further off-topic, battered women's shelters are attributed with much of the decline in spousal homicide.
The trader came in from some far away place, pissed off all the girls in the community, and got his butt kicked out of said community. Sounds like the whole event worked itself out. I'd say the developers did a good job of creating a realistic conflict within the confines of their imaginary world.
What'd they do? Cut their modem lines? Smash their keyboards? Set fire to their basements? Did the National guard have to be called out?
While those saying "it's only a game" are making an often heard point, I haven't seem much discussion along the lines of why I think this was an interesting event. (BTW, I'm lead designer of ATITD.)
To a new player, ATITD can seem like a game about building "stuff." You build your camp, your compound, your character. If you play a long time, or play smart, you can excel in all of that. But the real challenge is that it's a game about building a perfect society, and that is *hard*. It's hard in RL, and if I'm doing my job correctly it should be hard in the game.
Along comes a foreign trader, with shiny new goods, and an attitude that's totaly offensive, totally out of line with the culture that has developed in our Ancient Egypt. Would you trade with him? Would you put aside your morals, if it meant you'd get an advantage that many people don't have? In real-life, would you patronize a store that had a "no jews allowed" policy? What if they had *really* good prices? Would you do it and hope nobody saw? Maybe feel guilty?
The best books, movies, television - can provoke a range of emotions. I like books that make me feel happy, enraged, triumphant, guilty, enlightened, sad. I want to have all of those emotions available in an MMO, and emotions occur in players, not characters.
So, to create emotions you have to do things to characters that the people behind them will react to. The only question is how hard is it ok to push? So hard that the person kills themself? Of course not. Did this event push too hard? Certainly for some people it did.
I'll continue to make it hard to build this perfect society. If that means we trade subscriber counts for a more memorable, challenging experience, I'm confortable with that. After all, if I were optimizing for subscriber counts, I'd have done a combat based game. Hell, if I were optimizing for money, I'd have been a lawyer!
Banning the use of the terms 'Master' and 'Slave' for denoting hard drive configurations? Oh wait...
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Is it a social event, or an RPG? Let's be clear, RPG stands for Roll Playing Game.
So, it's all about rolling dice, right?
Because while many women don't identify as pro-choice (pro-choice identification is roughly 50% of women), somewhere between 60 and 80% of them believe abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances. (link)
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Look people this is a fictional world. Many fictional worlds include customs which would be utterly inappropriate in the real world. Every MMORPG includes random horrible violence. Usually you kill things like goblins just because of their race. Why is this suddenly differnt.
The ultimate point being that you can explore, and enjoy an online fantasy world without endorsing what occurs in that world. If we can't have discriminatory or asshole NPCs how do you acheive game conflict. Nothing I have seen suggests the game is *advocating* this position. I think this sort of thing can give important flavor and something for the players to campaign against.
In a broader sense I think these outrages are not only misplaced but cause us to miss broader issues. There is no danger in the modern world that people will backslide and start treating women as property again. However, there are plenty of subtle ways in which women are kept down and oppressed. This sort of 'outrage' detracts from the real issue.
For instance 90% of males I know, even 'liberated' males prefer to date women who are less assertive and intelligent than them. Girls who act like their male friends in assertivity and arguing about CS (or math or whatever) simply aren't found desierable. Guys who think logically are awarded with praise while often girls who do the same thing are chided for being too 'masculine'.
Every time we waste our time and focus on one of these 'outrages' we make things worse. Men get to think of themselves as 'liberated' and supporting equality for women when in fact they are the heart of the modern problem. It is only by focusing attention of these subtle inter-personal interactions can any true progress be made.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
Yes, of course, you're right.
Typing too (to? two?) fast.
Typing too-too-too fast? Wow, that is fast indeed!
Personally, I've never managed to type faster than tit-tata-toot!
Consider the name MALakai -- base being mal ('bad' in french, and latin/greek -- think MALadjusted).and it turned out that many of the people who traded with him ended up losing what they traded for to begin with (so the women refused service were proabably better off for it).
I've played in a live RPG where I came this close to being randomly attacked by a friggin GM, had an arm turned into a tentacle and told that I'd fallen in love with another character who my most recent interaction with resulted in both of us being dead. -- and that's just game creatures (introduced by the company who ran the game).
Nasty occurences are meant to be part of any good RPG. How people respond to such distrubances is IMHO more important (malakai was (rightly) hounded out of the country).
That the ATITD community ejected the cad the way they did says more (IMHO) about the game than that he was inserted into the plot.
I can't get any hard data on just how bad the 'riots' were, but I get a feeling that a reaction like that was intended.
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Stupid, childish, but simply hilarious! :)
Please mod parent up!
> Is it a social event, or an RPG? Let's be clear, RPG stands for Roll Playing Game.
roll - to move forward along a surface by revolving on an axis or by repeatedly turning over.
rôle - A character or part played by a performer.
You probably meant: Rôle Playing Game.
Ack. People who know little about the game are all full of opinions today.
So to correct some notions I've seen appear over and over in this thread:
1) It is a society building game, not historical reenactment. Ancient Egypt is used as a setting to give the game flavor, but ancient Egyptians did not have magical Raeli ovens, or Prismatic Opticons, or wonderous alchemy that turned lead into gold, or waypoint teleportation, etc. Historical accuracy is completely beside the point. (Yes, Teppy/Pharaoh himself says this.)
2) The legal system has been severely hamstrung in this tale. Players are allowed to pass one law on a ballot, and ballots are offered about one time a week. For a 6 month tale, that allows about 26 laws.
3) Laws must be codeable. An equal-rights act is not a workable law in this system.
4) Laws are subject to about 6 different kinds of veto by Teppy/Pharaoh.
You speak about the legal system as if it is a limitless source of power. It is really only a token game mechanism.
Is it technically still plagiarism if you are publishing something, by any means, completely and irrevoccably anonymously??
The issue at hand with plagiarism is IP rights, and as a completely anymous poster the grandparent obviously absolves all claims to any, potentially or otherwise. Can this be considered plagiarism?
No, I didn't write the grandparent, and don't care to be accused of that. I am simply posing a question.
Obviously it would be preferrable to attribute credit to sources, if for nbothing else than to lend the article a trackable stream of academic thought behind it, therefore facilitating further debate on the topics at hand. However, I still question whether any IP rights have been violated by someone who effectively anonymously quotes someone, and then anonymously posts or publishes the resulting composition.
Just food for thought.
Of blankness, I know nothing.
After actually playing the game, I can tell you the villain isn't an Egyptian (in game graphics, he distinctly looks like something else).
Read the ATITD wiki for details. Not all societies close to ancient egypt were good to women!
If people were playing that other country in the game, then the villains would be the evil Egyptian slave-takers obsessed with pyramids. Then slashdot would have a story on in-game racism that includes real life races - again missing the point.
The ATITD game would be pointlessly boring if it wouldn't center on 'tests'. Many of those tests are the test of the society, not just the individual.
I've nicknamed it "the unannounced test of the black market" !!! May our society survive this test (despite the fact the individual rewards for betraying are high)!
I'm still trying to find the villain so I can sell them a female character account (the male that used to play that female character is no longer playing; he gave me the account with leftover weeks for roleplaying purposes). I'm hoping to trade her for a free month of gaming!
I think I'd leave the game if they didn't put a stunt on us like that once in a while. Just to be reminded we're not playing evercrack or runescape!!
Microsoft is pure dog-ma. FreeBSD is pure cat-ma.
There's a lot of whining about whining going on here, "e.g. OMFG these people should shut up and stop whining. Vote with their wallets and shut up." What's the matter with complaining? You're doing it. I'm doing it. If you don't want to listen to their whining don't read about it. ;)
From the reviews I've read A Tale in the Desert is more about socializing then about killing gnomes or whatever. It's a sort of hippie equivalent of mmorpg (I don't mean that in a bad way). That goes a long way to explaining the outrage I think...
I was wondering when MMORPGs started reflecting the reality that people are shitty and we're all closet rascists, sexists, anti-homosexuals, or whatever your particular bigotry happens to be.
frankly i'm surprised this doesn't happen too often. I guess it's a testament to the speed and effectiveness of the admins of the corporate MMORPGs (ie sony) to quash the speech of such undesirables.
see this is why everyone should just play FPS games. everyone's a racist so just kill them.
frankly i'm surprised that there were actually enough women playing this game to riot. what is this world coming too? don't they have better things to do?
playing games should be relegated to the stupider gender. I thought women read books, helped others, and generally made a useful contribution to society.
leave the stupid shit like computer games, monster truck rallies, football, and the like to men. it suits our intelligence level.
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-- Believe your Justice!
So lame.
A game tries to do something interesting and cool - and this is what happens. The game makes should take this as a message that they are doing their job well.
It's a game set in ancient Egypt. As such, it should have social interactions appropriate for the time and the place. A trader who refuses to deal with women is certainly not out of character, so it has every right to be there. You don't like that? Then you don't like to play a character in ancient Egypt, nobody said you must. You want to play a character in an Egypt-like land which treats women fairly? Well, may be some other game will accomodate you, or you can start your own, but even if not, there is no God-given right to have your perfect game.
All feminists? Really?
Or maybe, just maybe, groups like "feminists" or "Muslims" or "men" aren't monolithic entities, but rather groups of individuals, each with their own biases and focuses.
Fact is, some feminists are rather more worked up about women in beer ads than women in burkhas. Perhaps that's odd from your perspective (it is from mine), but to say an entire group of millions of people is as you wish it were is, at best, self-delusion.
Allow me for a moment to speak as someone who has actually played the game, rather than someone bitching about something they thought they heard about on some news post someplace.
The ATITD games are basically games where the players make *all* the meaningful rules. It's pretty damn crude (and more than just a little bit boring) by some standards, but at the core of it is the players making laws for themselves. Whatever laws (and particularly the stupid ones) the players draft up, vote on, and pass into approval, the head developer implements.
ATITD (the first one) had *several* hundreds of laws. Laws pertaining to right of way. Laws pertaining to where people can build. Laws pertaining to what happens when someone steals something. Laws for *everything*, well, everything except slavery and equal rights. ATITD2 is starting fresh, there's only a handful of laws in play at the moment, and so this time the devs apparently decided to prod the players a bit to see if they'd draft up the necessary laws outlawing slavery and so on, by having an NPC roll into town from a reasonably historically accurate neighboring land.
Now you would think that if the previous run of the game had many hundreds of laws that after this there would be a flurry of Leadership petitions being assembled to formally outlaw slavery, racism, hatred, and cornish hens besides (I told you not all the laws made sense). Well, actually, there are. There is also a flurry of inflammatory reporting being done by websites without the first clue as to what actually went on in the game, being fed by a small number of dim-witted people who can't see the difference between their character and their actual selves.
The "riot" wasn't so much that players were pissed off about the event as it was that the players were looking for that slaver to express their desire he get the hell out of Egypt.
The black girl who was so put out by this event needs to *get a grip*. The game is set in ancient Egypt. Her character is a citizen there and her character saw another character acting like an ass. There's no need for her to be personally offended by it, and unlike other MMORPGS, she herself can login to the game anddraft a law, convince other players to sign it, and have that slaver removed from the environment permanently by exile. No messing about with GMs and policies needed.
Didn't we promise we'd stay and rebuild the country, unlike the last time where we dropped it as soon as it wasn't useful, leading to the armed chaos that let the Taliban take over in the first place? Haven't we largely abandoned it again?
We did a good thing in disrupting the Taliban, but we need to finish the job and rebuild Afghanistan. For our own safety, as well as to discharge our obligations.
Peter: As we all know, Christmas is that mystical time of year when the ghost of Jesus rises from the grave to feast on the flesh of the living! So we all sing Christmas Carols to lull him back to sleep.
Bob: Outrageous, How dare he say such blasphemy. I've got to do something.
Man #1: Bob there's nothing you can do.
Bob: Well I guess I'll just have to develop a sense of humour
I didn't plagiarizing the article you idiot, I wrote it in the first place! Not all of us who read slashdot bother to sign up to make comments, but the great grandparent was way off the mark. I guess I should expect such aggresive accusations from a male. -Caroline Seawright
And your point is...? That link made it very clear that there's no gender gap at all when it comes to opinions on abortion. It supports parent's implication that wanting to strike down Roe v. Wade isn't necessarily seen as oppressing women -- by women -- any more than it's seen that way by men. To suggest that it is, is nothing more than a PC stereotype.
And the brethren went away edified.
I can see the point - sure, other players are racist, sexist or whatever - but the people who run the game shouldn't be in the worldview of gaming.
I once went to a session of the "Vampire" roleplaying game run by a psych student who decided it would be a good way to emperiment on people. It pissed me off, becuase in my world view the GM should be influencing the choices of the characters and not the emotions of the players. I see this as similar - some idiot who has decided he has to "teach" people by challenging them in a game.
All the slashdot dittoheads seem to be saying the players should shut up and take it as if not doing so breaks the fucking game, and it doesn't.
As I understand it, the players staged an online 'riot' by fucking with the NPC that called the women slaves and forcing him to leave.
What the fuck is wrong with that?
If you're some foreigner and you go up to a free woman and start calling her a 'slave', what the fuck do you think would happen? What, you think they should say, "Yes, master"? The whole fucking point is that they *aren't* slaves, and they responded as they should.
So in short: NPC was being in character calling women 'slaves', and players were in character beating the shit out of him.
But of course, stupid slashdotters love any oppurtunities to depict women(many weren't even women, guys) as over-PC shrews.
This makes me cry. So many pathetic people in this world, upset over a stupid fucking game. DO SOMETHING WITH YOUR REAL LIFE PLEASE!
Hmm. Seems to me you're arguing that spousal homicide is extremely uncommon. Sure, it's not like every 10th spouse is dying every year, but it's a big deal, heck, approximately a third of all women murdered are murdered by an intimate.
.0032%, or 1 in 31,000 married women.
Original AC replying back...I was reponding to the misconception that men killing their wives is "hardly an oddity". Well my thoughts are still the same on this sad topic. Although it happens more than it should, women being killed by intimates is actually extremely uncommon. Non-homicidal domestic violence is a whole other topic.
Marriage numbers from a US Census PDF for the year 1975. Close enough(by 1 year) to your source, which listed 1,600 women were killed by intimates in 1976.
Drawing from the US Census PDF(pg. 2) it lists during June 1975: 49,811,000 women were married.
Out of 49,811,000 married women, 1,600 were killed by intimates(rough approximation here.)
So what's the percentage of married women being killed by intimates? About
Note that this is using the 1,600 number of women killed in "intimate" homicides, which includes not just married women(the "intimate" perpetrator may not even be her husband!) but also unmarried women.
Since then, the marriage rate has only gone down somewhat, the homicides are down, and the spousal homicide rate is still quite miniscule.
The valid question does arise, though, how far can you go bringing in real world storylines without crossing the line between entertaining and rubbing salt into wounds? Now as a game developer it is impossible to not upset anyone at all and still have compelling content... A character that commits suicide can be completely gripping to one person and too painful to bear for another. But on the other hand there are certain morays that should not be crossed. The Sims 2 will allow you to have homosexual relationships, as that has become basically accepted in society, but it won't let you sleep with your kids. If Malakai The Molester of Children came through ATITD, players would be rightfully outraged. Child molestation is a Moray in this country, and games should only in the most ginger of terms or ways cross any of those lines. Likewise, sexism and racism is a moray to a lot of people, and should be treated as such.
Negative, dangerous, or damaging experiences are a part of a good RPG, but there are fundamental differences between having your virtual town stomped by a dragon, and having your character raped by another character. Encountering sexism wherever you find it is still sexism, be it in a game or in real life, and it has very real negative emotional consequences. To have this not only condoned, but acted by the GM is greatly stepping over the line, and is likely to bring in the undesired emotion of basic outrage.
I can understand how someone crafting the game from a high level could make such a stupid mistake, but that doesn't change the fact that it was a terribly stupid mistake. Put your players in uncomfortable situations, yes, make them face choices that they rather would not want to make. But don't bring people out of the game by doing the kinds of bad emotional things they are attempting to escape and call it entertainment. You could cause discomfort amongst the players by deleting all of their characters, but it would be a stupid thing to do.
That the ATITD community ejected the cad the way they did says more (IMHO) about the game than that he was inserted into the plot.
Now the community is (rightfully) trying to eject the cad that inserted that into the plot... an effort I would totally agree with, if I wasn't so forgiving.
The ______ Agenda
No offense to female gamers who play as female characters, but seriously, without going into a player's account information/credit card information, how do you know that X female character is REALLY a female in real life? I played Final Fantasy XI and tried Ultima Online, Asheron's Call 1 and 2 and I can tell you honestly that male players who use female characters are not uncommon. Hell, some players I talk to even joke about female characters really being played by males because 'they don't ask like a girl'. Throw in games where certain character races/jobs can ONLY be played by a certain gender and you've got a whole gender confusion mess.
As far as marketing and economic decisions go, mistreating women in a game is a dumbass move. This kind of press won't equate to much positive publicity either.
Alot of women think gaming (beit pc or console) is nerdish and uncool and for lonely guys, and humiliating those females who are giving electronic gaming a chance is not good for the industry as a whole.
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
Folks, maybe it's just me, but could it be that we're all missing the bigger picture in this game? Specifically, I play games because they're fun, interesting, adventurous diversions from real life... but now we have games that put people in a virtual world where they have to work to build themselves and their society up... call me nuts, but why waste time in the virtual world if you're just going to simulate work? I've got a novel idea for those of you who have spent the last 10 years engulfed in an online world. Try unplugging your computer and go outside!! It's free, and it's REAL (whoa!)... The mind boggles over this one... now we simulate work on a computer and call it entertainment, or a game... anyone else catching on to what I'm saying?
Post Modern has been pretty much rendered meaningless by its overuse by people using it for a decorative rather than semantic function. Originally, it was a term of Art History and Art Criticism, and it had a specific obvious meaning, as well as certain cultural resonances. It's pretty much detached from any substrate of signification it might have had and now floats as a quasi-meanigful or perhaps meaningless signifier.
The definitions you offer I think are better associated with Post Structuralism, but again we an even greater problem of the lay person not knowing what it means, having never heard of Structuralism (de Saussure or Lévi-Strauss. He invented bluejeans, right?)
Anyway, that's my great wisdom. I'm probably full of shit. Anyway, my immediate reaction upon hearing or reading the word Post Modern (or god forbid "Pomo") is that the speaker is an idiot trying to sound intelligent. When I hear someone use the term Post Structuralist, I usually think "psuedo-intellectual who at least tried to read that crap but most likely stopped when it made his or her head hurt." And finally, when I hear the word Culture, I reach for my Browning.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
"The online game, which simulates an ancient Egyptian culture, was full of angry players after a developer-run event used openly discriminatory language against the female gender."
...playing at home in his underwear, no doubt.
"That's not a women, it's a MAN, Baay-Bee!!
You need a FREE iPod Nano
The Signal/Noise ratio can be improved in two ways. Remaining silent is the OTHER way.
im offended by this article because I dont know how to read and you assume I do..how rude of you!
I applaud the developers for such a clever idea. (And would feel the same if it were some amazonian trader who treated men as second class citizens, or whatever. )
I like thought-provoking entertainment.
this is fun, in eve-online, slavery is a part of the RP background and one playable race are treated constantly like terrorists and slaves by other people IC.
nobody gets upset about this.
Coming from a woman's viewpoint, as long as I knew in advance the type of civilization that I was in, I would be expecting it. In fact to have others treat a woman as equal would seem strange. But that doesn't mean that you couldn't change the laws or work your way up in society.
Especially since the character was an npc, I wouldn't be so offended. If the woman thought that they were targeting her specifically, then she has every right to be upset, but if it is happening to anyone that plays a female character, then she needs to be told that this is part of the story and not meant as any type of sexual or racial slur or attack on her.
I think that some kind of warning about this content being for mature players and that something like this could happen would have alleviated some of the complaints. If you know that this could happen and you still choose to play, then you have no right to complain as long as this is happening to everyone equally.
Free Flat Screen HERE!
if you were an Orge or a Drow or a Giant, some of the NPC vendors wouldn't sell you anything... Yet whenever anyone tries to aplly this to gender especially people become very angry
./ readers) they are not considered mere creatures of fantasy. And it's only 50-100 years since they moved from being viewed as the property of their husband and the subject of widespread discrimination and disenfranchisement to being viewed as full citizens. So maybe it's just a tad inappropriate to invoke discrimination from the real world in a fantasy world setting.
I cannot believe you are serious. You are apparently unaware of the connection you are making.
Question: what is the difference between the following two sets: "Ogre, Elf, Giant", "woman". THAT'S RIGHT! The first set DOES NOT FUCKING EXIST. No ogres will be offended when a game character refuses to deal with an Ogre character. There is no history of oppression of ogres in the real world.
On the other hand, women ARE real, and for most people (although possibly not
Read Pynchon.
It's just a game.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
As I part time MUD admin, Id like to comment:
Are these fe-males frigging KIDDING me?!
That said, this is news? We had riots over lowering DAM on favourite weapons, sjeez. Can you imagine? A world where a vorpal sword would sometimes FAIL a beheading? Noo... RIOT!
"/Dread"
I said nothing about gender gap, only provided relevant statistics regarding the fact that a majority of women do, in fact, support at least some form of abortion.
A majority of men too, but that wasn't part of the question.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
And your point is...?
My point was that a majority of women DO, in fact, support some form of legal abortion, which means that its not a totally invalid assumption to assume that a random woman is pro-choice in at least some manner, and at least 50-50 to identify as such.
The fact that it holds true for men as well does not invalidate my point.
(previous post was accidental, prior to editing, please respond to this one)
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
This follows exactly with how people act. Excellent pile of roleplayers ATITD has. Next there will be a lynching.
In related news.. 39% of turkish women say its ok for their husbands to beat them for arguing, burning the food, or attempting to trade with a level 40 wizard..
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
For some reason, people tend to forget that they are playing an MMORPG - and if it's set in another time, then expect the game to realistic if the creators want that.
If you play a WW2 MMORPG, expect a Jewish character to get shit from nazi NPC's.
Even if it was somehting that seemed harsh toward women... It's called roleplaying and that's how it happened... I mean I play SWG For instance, their are women slaves in the game for god's sake.. It's and RP experiance, if you can't handle it cause you are a huge douchebag braless, manhater. stop playing.
I just don't understand the big controversy here. It other games it is common for certain races not to train or help those of other races. In SWG, races other than human have to pay more faction points for Imperial items. All that's being done here is with sex instead of race. It's a game people, and the comments by the npc are within the context of the game. Saying the developers are being sexist is akin to saying the developers of id are satanists.
...means, to me, that he was certainly intending to be insulting to women. I read it as the intending meaning and the apparant meaning as being the same.
Oh well.
Blar.
No, what invalidates your point is that you've been very selective in how you cited the data on that page. A better guide to whether most women are "pro-choice" would have been the other column. Totally free choice is represented only by the first graph there, and it was less than a majority of women. (And men.) All the rest are willing to subject abortion to *some* limitation. If abortion was to be allowed only (for example) when the life of the mother was endangered, that's not really a choice in any meaningful sense. It's interesting that the two columns don't appear to track very well. It's possible that some of the women who answered in the first column, "Legal, most" were laboring under the misapprehension that most abortions were now performed under just that circumstance.
The point of this being that there really isn't enough data here to justify your conclusion. The survey didn't ask sufficiently detailed questions.
And the brethren went away edified.
I've found that everyone arguing abortion is extremely selective when they cite data. Its one of those arguments where no one is really listening anyway, so I don't know why I bother having it any more.
That said, I stated exactly what the data on that page (representing a collection of the results of various different surveys, not a single survey, which may well explain the poor tracking - if the samples weren't normalized to each other, significant differences could be found) says: around 50% of women identify as pro-choice, and 80% of women support at least some form of legal abortion. This does, in fact, mean that a majority of women support at least some legal abortion. Whether a majority of women support abortion on demand from your corner drug store, I don't know, but I never implied that they did - a majority of women support at least some form of abortion, and roughly half identify as pro-choice. I stand by what I stated.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
But the minute you put in sexual discrimination its a problem? sorry no it doesnt work like that one isnt worse than the other.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
That's no reason for you to do it. Anyway, this is a meta-argument on abortion. It's not about the morality of it as such, it's about public opinion about it.
That said, I stated exactly what the data on that page (representing a collection of the results of various different surveys, not a single survey, which may well explain the poor tracking - if the samples weren't normalized to each other, significant differences could be found) says: around 50% of women identify as pro-choice, and 80% of women support at least some form of legal abortion.
You cannot get that information from that page. Only the Gender category breaks the information down by sex. If you're calling 42% "around 50%"... I'm sorry, but that's not valid. You're deliberately trying to underplay the fact that according to one of those charts 57%, and the other 73%, of women favor at least some restrictions on the availability of abortion. That's a significantly different picture than the veritable even split your "around 50%" suggests.
The other surveys give some idea what the circumstances people in general (not broken out by sex) consider to be good reasons for an abortion. Significantly, look at the "Reasons" graph. 61% believe abortion should be illegal for merely economic reasons. It's not too much of a stretch that the all-too-common abortion for mere convenience or as a method of birth control would meet with even greater disapproval. It's a pity they didn't ask about those. According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute only 6% of abortions are primarily because of health problems. 1% are because the pregnancy was due to rape or incest. The rest are situations where putting the child up for adoption would be a reasonable alternative. (This is a relatively recent chart, but the data's old. Still, I got the link to this place from Planned Parenthood's website, so it's clear that AGI's data aren't seen as embarrassing to PP. And no one's saying the situation has changed much since then as far as I can tell.)
In other words, that "Reasons" chart at Public Agenda had a bias built in to the underlying survey because they failed to ask about a common reason for abortion. The only non-medical reason they asked about was economic, when it's clear that there are several other non-economic reasons. But even then, most people believe abortion should be illegal in that situation.
So where abortion can be reasonably termed a choice -- where there's no medical reason for it, so it's genuinely elective surgery -- most people want it to be illegal. Since the "Gender" chart failed to turn up any kind of significant gender gap here, we can't assume that most of that 61% are men. It's more reasonable to assume that men and women are split evenly here as they are in other abortion-related matters and that about 61% of women feel elective abortions should be illegal.
So now your "around 50%" has dropped to just under 40%.
Again, the point here isn't that abortion is wrong, or even that most women think that most abortions should be illegal. (I believe that to be a reasonable inference from what we're seeing here, but that exact information just isn't there so it could also be an erroneous inference.) The point is that the data doesn't support your contention of "around 50%" of women self-identifying as pro-choice.
And the brethren went away edified.
I just want to add that, based strictly on my own personal experience, many of those who advocate easy access to abortion have a greatly exaggerated idea of how many abortions are performed each year because of risk to the mother's life or because the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. It would be an interesting survey to carry out, and it might explain some of the disparity here between numbers who feel that abortion should be only slightly restricted and the numbers who feel that non-health related abortions should be illegal.
And the brethren went away edified.
Jacques Derrida (July 15, 1930 - October 8, 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher of Jewish descent, considered the first to develop "deconstruction".
You cannot get that information from that page. Only the Gender category breaks the information down by sex. If you're calling 42% "around 50%"... I'm sorry, but that's not valid. You're deliberately trying to underplay the fact that according to one of those charts 57%, and the other 73%, of women favor at least some restrictions on the availability of abortion. That's a significantly different picture than the veritable even split your "around 50%" suggests.
Look at the graph for the pro-choice question - it shows 47% of women identify as pro-choice. I call that around 50%, yes.
I don't even feel like responding to the rest of your post, if you won't even look at the data.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Based strictly on my personal experience, most of those who advocate easy access to abortion don't advocate it for those reasons. Of course, I grew up in a fairly liberal city, and now live in another one.
And having worked with this country's foster care/adoption system, I can only say this: anything that results in fewer children being in those situations, *including* abortions for economic reasons, can only be considered a good thing.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
I don't know anyone in ATITD who walks around acting like an ancient egyptian. Only the NPC's and the Events team people do that. Everyone else either is speaking in their native language using their everyday manerisms. There may also be people who spend their gametime trying to "be someone they're not" (ex: a usually shy person is able to be outspoken online). But I have only met one person (who no longer plays) who liked to actually "play the part" and would talk about Egypt like it was a Lady and talk about the players like they were slaves of the Pharaoh. Frankly, most everyone thought he was a freak. (I'd like to see ATITDers take a guess at who I'm talking about, lol)
The bottom line is NOBODY HAS THE RIGHT TO TELL ANYONE HOW THEY SHOULD ACT OR REACT to this event. Your online time is just that, YOURS. If you pay money to play a game, you should be able to control whether or not you are subject to sensitive material. The players who were deeply offended have real valid and upsetting reasons why they are offended and NOBODY, including Teppy, should force it upon them or tell them to get lost if they don't like it.
In other games, chat rooms or chat programs, you can block or ignore people who offend you. Tell me - what can you do when the DEVELOPER of the game is the one being offensive? Quit? WTF? Yank my favorite leisure activity out from underneath me because you got a bug up your ass to stir the pot all of a sudden? Just apologize, tell your people that you're going to use a little better judgement from now on and admit your mistake! You don't need this crap to make your game better. Get back to your coding where you belong.
And lastly - to you people who have never played ATITD and do not know what kind of crowd it draws but feel compelled to talk about ATITDers like they have a clue about what's going on, STFU already. The people who play ATITD could out-think you, out-smart you and out-last you any day.
I can't look at what I can't find. Kindly provide a direct link. I see no "pro-choice" question on that page. Are you sure you linked to the page you thought you did?
And the brethren went away edified.
It's just a forum.
That last remark is deeply insulting to every adoptive parent I know, and I know several.
And the brethren went away edified.
"Im sorry to mention this, but it's a GAME. IT'S FICTIONAL. You shouldn't be anymore upset than those who play Drow in AD&D get when someone "discriminates" against them. If you want to be offended in character than do so. However, if you take it out of the game, it's your own fault for doing so! Stop blurring the distinctions between fantasy worlds and real life. Even if this was "some guys fantasy," it doesn't change what you knew you were doing when you played the game, entering some developer's fantasy world. "
Nice people need something to do too and the mission statement on ATITD.com lured a group of slightly-older, intelligent, nice people to play it. The events as of late are not what the players bargained for when they joined.
Furthermore, the type of pain the offended players are feeling is an offline type of pain. This event conjured up some ill feelings from people's RL pasts.
Listen, unless you are a woman or unless you are a black or unless you're both, you're not going to understand how it felt to have this happen to you and, therefore; you don't need to stick your nose in where it doesn't belong.
I have nothing against adoptive parents; I admire them. I didn't intend the remark to be insulting to those who are loving and dedicated enough to take a child into their homes; especially the ones who take the most damaged products of our child care system.
I hate the system. Especially, especially, foster care. Spend some time dealing with the Detroit foster care system, and you will too. The things those kids go through, mainly before being placed into the system, but also while they're in it, are quite simply fucked up. Anything that results in fewer children being in that system, including abortions for economic reasons, is a good thing.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Sorry, it isn't at all obvious and I had a bookmark to the direct page so I didn't realize.
Direct link. Left hand graph.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
Given all the other data, especially those that indicate most people favor illegalizing elective abortions, the natural question to ask a respondant to that survey is, "What does pro-life mean? What does pro-choice mean?" If pro-life is interpreted as the position that all abortions should be illegal, then obviously the only sensible thing to call yourself is pro-choice. But even the Pope thinks abortion should be legal if there's a life on the line. And a large majority -- 84% -- favors illegalizing third trimester abortions such as the "partial birth abortion". Does that make all those people pro-life?
I don't know if that's what's going on, but the disparity here should be accounted for somehow if we're just going to throw these numbers around.
I'll remark on adoption just so we don't bifurcate further. Bear in mind that when adoption is held up as an alternative to abortion, it's infant adoptions people have in mind with arrangements settled before the actual birth. These kids don't generally need to go through the foster care system, which I agree can be a nightmare for all involved. I think we're talking about two different worlds here.
And the brethren went away edified.
Ouch. I hadn't even noticed that it was labeled "Americans" and not women. My fault, even if the data does more or less seem to be equivalent based on that other chart.
Given all the other data, especially those that indicate most people favor illegalizing elective abortions...
Not sure where you got that, though. If you look at this graphic, you'll see that 68% feel that it shouldn't legislated. I interpret 'between woman and doctor' as not meaning 'don't legislate it', which is arguable. However, it matches well with this graph, which has a 65% answer to "should not interfere". If you look at this graphic, you get the lovely contradiction of 57% "only under certain circumstances" as well as 43% "should be generally available". The problems, as Public Agenda points out are mainly in the fact that slight wording differences can draw large disparities in responses, and many people differentiate between what they feel is 'right' and what they feel should be legal.
But I'm with you - the numbers are pretty easy to make say anything you want them to say. Lies, damn lies, and polls.
Adoption-wise, we were indeed talking about different worlds, but I do not believe you're correct when you talk of pre-arranged adoptions. My point is that a fair number of 'economic' abortions, if not performed, would result in children in the child services system. If you can arrange an adoption rather than an abortion, that's your choice - I personally think its a bad idea, because it reduces the chance of a prospective adoptive parent adopting a child already in the system - but there are nowhere near enough adoptive parents in this country to adopt all children who would have been aborted, even if you just exclude the 'economic' and 'reasonless' (i.e. "I just didn't want a kid") abortions. There are roughly 50,000 adoptions per year from the public care system (year 2000 number, it has grown since then) in the US, where adoption is defined as "not placed back with birth parent/family". There were around 1.3 *million* abortions in 2000; this number has dropped since then, but not much. 95% of those are done as a means of birth control - 'economic' or 'reasonless' abortions, in other words. Where would those children go? While I won't argue that all of them, or even many of them, would end up in foster care, if even 5% wound up in foster care, the system would have to absorb a 10% increase in total children, and a large problem in that the inflow rate (which is currently roughly equal to the outflow rate) would increase by 20%, without any likelihood of a corresponding increase in the outflow rate.
While people may hold up "the kid will be adopted prior to birth", I don't see any reason to believe that would be true in a significant number of cases. Again, having worked in the Detroit child services system for a while, and having family who still do, just about anything is better than increasing the numbers of children in the system.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
It was in the post you said you didn't want to read.
I note from the adoption site link that no national statistcs have been compiled since 1992. That's a damn shame, because this is really something we should know about as a society. All I know at this point is that the system is nowhere near saturated considering how long couples wanting to adopt have to wait. Three families I'm acquainted with ended up doing international adoptions, multiple times, because the domestic system was simply not serving them. Perhaps that points more to inefficiencies in the system more than anything else, but the effect is the same as if there was a shortage of available adoptees. That's something that has to change.
And the brethren went away edified.
Sorry, when I read Gamers and Riot in the same sentence, all I can see is a giant slap fight breaking out. No, I'm not very PC.....
The opinions expressed here are not mine, but those of these dang voices in my head.
(Race will be used somewhat accusingly in this; I make no apology for it, just a warning.)
A large part of the problem is in who people are willing to adopt; there's little shortage of people willing to adopt infant white children, and thus there's a shortage of infant white children to be placed. But there's not a lot of desire to adopt black and hispanic teens, and the system has plenty of those.
The families you were acquainted with - were they willing to adopt a teen? Someone of color? Not to be pessimistic, but I'd have to assume not, especially to the question of a teen. Further, domestic agencies know all too well exactly how bad foster families can sometimes be - they do tend to check families out more thoroughly than international and private agencies do. This takes time, but the time is taken to prevent the kind of abuses that can destroy the system. I'm not at all saying those sorts of abuses are common, but they do occur, and the domestic agencies try their best to avoid placing an adoptive child in a situation that will go badly.
The adoption system is underfunded and maybe not as efficient as it could be if it was properly supported, but the main reason there are such long waits is not the system, but the people who want adoptions. 64% of adoptions from domestic agencies are to a foster family, a family that's already shown willingness to take in older/cross-racial children. That percentage rises as the age of the child rises. That suggests to me that most adopting parents (and other statistics, on the number of prospective adoptive parents who are doing it as an alternate method of reproduction bear this out) want an infant; essentially, they want the end result of a pregnancy. They're not interested in older kids, they're not interested in kids that won't look like them (look into statistics on cross-racial adoption). Blaming the adoption system for the fact that many parents aren't willing to take what the system needs to place is unfair.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
It is very sad that people like you sit and read forums and comment about what other people should do with their lives while you sit there doing nothing with yours.
It's true they did not adopt teens. But in this context, we're talking about infant adoptions. They did adopt children of color, and are white themselves.
And the brethren went away edified.
International adoptions often result in adoption of children of color, though that usage is not quite what is usually meant by the domestic agencies (where it pretty much means black and hispanic kids; SE asian kids, who are the most common international adoptees, are not exactly numerous in domestic system). At any rate, I hope you didn't interpret it as my playing the race card against your friends/acquaintances - talking about adoption is pretty much impossible without acknowledging the racial issues involved, is all. No offense meant, and hopefully none taken.
My point, to some extent, is that burdening the system with more infants is just going to drop teen adoption rates even lower than they already are; this is no good because teens are both the hardest to place and the hardest to raise in a foster care system. Further, adding infants to the system in no way means they *will* be adopted. Although statistics show a half million are currently "seeking to adopt" (1995, the data is poor), only 200,000 have taken any real steps towards doing so. That level of demand has stayed pretty constant over at least the last 20 years. Again, lots of abortions, not that many adoptions; not even that many prospective adoptions.
Some scary statistics: "After aging out of foster care, 27% of males and 10% of females were incarcerated within 12 to 18 months. 50% were unemployed, 37% had not finished high school, 33% received public assistance, and 19% of females had given birth to children." Even if the incoming infants were adopted, they're likely to displace at least some possible teen adoptions. The outcomes for teens coming out of foster care are pretty poor, as you can see. While adoption numbers in a "rape/incest/life of mother only" abortion environment would undoubtedly rise, so would foster care numbers, and probably higher; the increased supply of 'desirable' adoptions would be only partially covered by the increased number of infant adoptions, some of which would be counter-balanced by a corresponding teen adoption which wouldn't happen. Most problems, and most abuses, are due to or happen to older children in the foster care system. That's the problem, not that the infants would be difficult to adopt, but that an easy supply of them would make it damn near impossible to get the kids who are difficult to serve adopted. Taking care of an infant is a lot easier, in some ways, than taking care of a 12 year old.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
RTFA. Yes, she is: Tammy O'Sullivan.
-Rich